How the Mac was born... supposedly...

[Ethan Dicks]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:12:04 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> wrote:
> It didn't take much hardware to run a real unix in 1994, even:
> 
> http://wps.com/archives/wps.com.11Apr1994/wps-hardware.html
> 
> 40MHz 386 and 16M RAM. And I ran a business on it. Multiple (2, 3)
> users.

My first Linux install was on a home-built 40MHz 386 w/4M of RAM... I
have the check for the motherboard somewhere - $250 for the board and
CPU, April 1992, IIRC.  I loaded Slackware from *stacks* of floppies
because the DOS-partion (UMS?) trick didn't exist yet. That long ago,
one could expect to get away with 4MB (there were tricks for 2MB, but
given  the cost of RAM at the time ($20-$25/meg), one might as well
had 4MB before starting.

That same 386 also ran DOS on a different hard disk (not dual-boot...
I physically swapped the drives out).  That was the box I beta-tested
"Return To Zork" on in its DOS phase.  Got a lot of life out of it.

-ethan